A wide variety of cable and line wrapping techniques have been used to retrieve and recover objects both on land and underwater. A number of devices for attaching a line have been attempted that show varying degrees of success, but, as a general rule, they tend to be too complicated and the engaging interconnection could be improved upon.
The well-known girth hitch is a secure proven attachment and has been in use since antiquity for securing a line to an object or for suspending a load via a line. Other than tying the hitch by hand, most devices and methods of affixing a girth hitch have required access to either one or the other end of the object. Usually, a girth hitch would be tied away from the object, mounted on some sort of a bracket, and then slipped over one of the ends or projections of the object. Clearly this approach would not work when a closed loop or other projectionless object was to be engaged. Attachment via the somewhat reliable clove hitch knot met with similar limitations since the clove hitch line had to be wrapped completely around the object twice. This wrapping procedure is usually not a tolerable luxury when trying to secure to an object in a difficult location, such as one which is at extreme ocean depths where, perhaps, only a closed loop structure is available for connection. Furthermore, the known girth hitch attachment techniques require several sequential manipulations of the hitching line which simply cannot be performed in numerous situations.
Thus, a continuing need exists in the state of the art for a mechanism for attaching a girth hitch by merely moving a mechanism toward the object to be engaged and backing away from the object to affix the girth hitch so that an interconnected lift line can effect recovery.